Spirituality for Living

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On my spiritual path I have studied many world beliefs. While I don’t claim to be an authority on them, I will share some of what I’ve learned in the ‘World Beliefs’ category. Perhaps they will inspire you to seek further.

Those who abandon their faith are not faithless. Perhaps quite to the contrary, their faith has given them the strength to abandon trappings. Religion from the Latin religio meaning practice. We will all have practices. I was very devout myself, and in my devotion I found I could no longer devote myself to that creed. My faith isn’t weak. It motivates my seeking. I don’t subscribe to any specific faith. I find truth in my personal experience which does loosely label me a Gnostic. Many Gnostic schools say the logos indwells our sun itself.

The Buddhas wisdom was put into the context of the greater way as was the only way it could be, but in fact the symbolism is at best intuitively true. The spheres exist within us. Wisdom is simple. It is the sign of true knowing. Not if they can spout arcane jargon, but can they take an arcane topic and make it abundantly clear to the uninitiated.

I will state that these beliefs discussed are not necessarily my beliefs.

“There is not enough religion in the world to destroy the world’s religious.” Friedrich Nietzsche

What is Taoism?

Taoism is one of those world religions that sort of isn’t one. Many popular Chinese concepts are connected to Taoism and actually in many ways it’s like the Egyptian faith. The basic principle is acceptance of and living with the natural way. Lao-Tzu was its unofficial founder and one of the immortals that are venerated, though that’s really true only of religious Taoism. As a matter of fact, like Buddhism the bulk of Taoist schools don’t deify anything. They adopted a lot of symbolism from the long since defunct Chinese religion of Bon, which is basically Chinese shamanism. The dancing… Seek More

Taoist Practice

There are many allegories in Taoism and much like Greek Gnosticism it is heavily experience based, though there are a body of philosophers, referred to as sages, who are viewed as having deep insight into the Tao, like Chuang-Tzu and other students of Lao Tzu. Does Taoism have monks and nuns like Buddhism? No, and in fact that concept is foreign to Taoist thinking. The only purity that can be attained in Taoism is harmony with the Tao. So how is one a Taoist from a participation perspective? It’s a personal pursuit, almost like a science. It is like seeing… Seek More

A Taoist View

I’ve been asked to describe a normal day of mine, or rather abnormal? My day actually starts in my night. I have some unusual conditions I deal with so taking a Taoist view helps me accept “my way” in life, since I can’t implement “common sense”. I’m autistic among other things. I always dream lucidly. So I wake processing the dream content. I consider what I’m able to do in a day and meditate in bed as I find motivation to act in the day and let my internal impulses guide me. Not my mood but instinct. It runs deeper… Seek More

the gods

The energy of the universe is marvellous, but Shivas dance is divisionary. Kali is the uniter. She dances too. The great mother is compassionate whether people like it or not. Perhaps the ultimate “kindly one” and like Isis she is the source of rebirth. Where our lord Shiva treads upon demons and is their king. The gods live in the collective soul of humanity and endure through many incarnations. Humanities gods are angry. Aries rules much at this point. God as a dynamic, and god manifested are rather different. Both can be spoken of to valuable insight. In fact the spirits… Seek More

What is Zen?

It is a commonly mistaken notion that Buddhists see the Buddha as especially divine. There is a school or two that does, but in fact the majority of Buddhist sects are almost agnostic as it regards deities. Zen would be one of these. There are two branches of thought in Buddhism. One is that enlightenment is a long purification process that takes many incarnations to arrive at, and another is that you can almost accidentally stumble across it. Enlightenment, nirvana, satori in Zen, though in fact they describe many different shades of that state, there isn’t just the one, and… Seek More

Zen Practice

Ever see Zen art? They use simple ink and they refuse to draw from memory. They seek to trap the sense impression, so the images are very impressionistic. Suggesting the image of say a bird, because in fact as we move about in our normal consciousness, how vividly does anything register on us? Usually not very, and like Taoist thinking they also tend to illustrate humanity as a small part of any scene. As you practice Zen you begin to see that the ‘what’ you think is doing all of this, is actually sort of being done by the world. Most people… Seek More

Enlightenment

There are stories where the Zen master says something, and the student is said to be ‘enlightened’.  In that moment the words didn’t matter as much as the students thinking, and what will do that for any student differs. This is why you see the symbol of the dorje or lighting bolt in Buddhism, because in fact the Buddha was said to have achieved that understanding on his own and of an instant. Zen follows the idea that we can do the same. So if I were to discuss your world view with you, when you are seeing the superficiality… Seek More

Path in Hinduism

Hinduism is actually a blanket term for multiple spiritual paths. A common disposition among those who pursue most of the schools is that they don’t have a salvationist view. Most of them are more concerned with understanding as individuals than as a “faith”. Many don’t even see themselves as a faith as it’s defined in western religion. It has links to the original paganism of course, and the role of the gods is either still seen as literally or is taken as a spiritual metaphor. But though many define it as pantheistic, it’s not so easily defined. It doesn’t really… Seek More

Gods and Divine Potential

What is the ‘god’ structure in Hinduism? That differs, but there are some principles across the board. One is the concept of a universal spirit called by many names, but not in a divisive way. More as a recognition of the manifold nature of this universal spirit. It is called by the Brahminists, Brahman, called by the Yagis, Shakti, and they seek to unify the kundalini force or primal fire with the Shakti or universal spirit. They see that the universal spirit is capable of taking on more focused forms, even physical incarnation. This is where the concept of avatars… Seek More

Names of Satan

How did Satan as a figure get into the Christian story? It stems from a schism in Semitic faiths, and the catholic or “universalist” agenda of early Christianity. This schism in Semitic faiths echoed even in Egyptian religion. This is why there was a conflict between them and the Egyptians. Set was a Semitic deity though at one time still acknowledged as divine. It was the Persians who had much contact with the Hindu people, and the term Hindu comes from the magis reference to those who live south of the sindu river. The Persian influence was responsible for introducing… Seek More